


Love in the Time of Incivility

by Ladyofwarandmercy



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Forgiveness, Memory Alteration, Presumed Dead, Thomas Terrance Ward
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-30
Updated: 2015-07-30
Packaged: 2018-04-12 03:43:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4464191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladyofwarandmercy/pseuds/Ladyofwarandmercy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the controversy over newly-Gifted people heats up, enemies, brothers, friends, and lovers learn to forgive again</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

     “Well, here we are,” Lincoln Campbell quipped, “The Grassy Knoll, where Grant Ward killed John F Kennedy!” Terry Wade snickered as Daisy Johnson rolled her eyes. Terry and Lincoln were the team’s dissidents on the issue of Grant Ward’s guilt over the serial killings of Gifted Daisy and the team had been investigating. Daisy continued on down into Dealey Plaza as Terry and Lincoln pretended to take a reading. Lincoln gave Terry a pointed look, “They really are too hung up on this guy. Admittedly, all I know I get from reading detective novels and watching cop shows, but I agree with you that the dude doesn’t fit the profile. Grant Ward didn’t personally piss in my Cheerios, so I think I can be objective, here.” Terry nodded in agreement. “Now, keep in mind,” Lincoln continued, “You are just as bad the other way, Terry.” Terry looked both ways before he continued, “I do know him better than all of you, you know. I don’t think this Garrett guy screwed him up that badly.” Lincoln stopped the both of them before they could be within audio range of the rest of the team. “The Grant Ward they describe to me, even without the fangs, claws, and devil horns, he isn’t the brother you knew. I’m actually open to the idea that he went off his rocker and has been doing this, but I need a lot more evidence than we have thus far. How are things coming along with May, Shrinky? You can’t avoid the subject of your brother forever, you know.” Terry nodded, “So far, the Bahrain incident has been keeping our sessions occupied. From the tidbits I’ve gathered, though, I’m afraid Grant will come up eventually. And then I have to tell her. Remind me if some cougar ever looks my way to Just Say No, okay? Promise me that.” Both men laughed, then turned on their comlinks before the rest of the team got suspicious.

     The lead on Grant Ward’s location panned out, but what they did not know was that a second team of dissident Inhumans were on Ward’s trail as well, having been warned of SHIELD’s identification of the serial killer. The other team had one of the Terrigen Crystals from Afterlife, which they dropped on Ward and his team. In the chaos, Daisy had used her powers, and now all the petrified members of Team Ward were shaken into little pieces. As Terry and Lincoln were tasked with cataloging the pieces for re-construction in the name of identifying the dead, Terry nudged Lincoln, holding a piece of “stone” that looked a bit different, and more…hollow. _Someone_ in that group didn’t die when the metal-contaminated mist hit them. “I can’t make guarantees, Terry,” Lincoln whispered, “And you said you two had different mothers. But let’s get the cocoon pieces and reconstruct them ourselves.” It seemed to give Terry the hope he needed to gather the pieces of all the dead, and the possibly cocooned, and ship them to the lab for re-construction. Terry was almost caught by Coulson with the box of cocoon material, but he managed not to jump. “Hey, Terry. I have a bottle of Bushmill’s. Maybe you and I can talk together. Things might get a little…wild tonight.” Terry managed to paste on a smile. “Oh, I’ll be okay. You just never know a person, do you? I’ve just got to get this to the lab, now.” And with that, he beat a retreat. “Oh, shit.” Coulson muttered as Terry disappeared.

     To Phil Coulson’s credit, he did try to tone the party down, but most of the rest of the team weren’t having it. May and Morse kept singing something that became less and less coherent the more intoxicated they got, but it was to the tune of “Ding Dong The Witch is Dead.” The other men had a loud pool game, which ended about the time Fitz was drunk enough to get mopey, and Daisy could not keep her hands off Lincoln. Lincoln was, surprisingly, a gentleman. Skye was getting more and more drunk, and her giggles started turning into ugly tears, as Lincoln feared they would. When Coulson found him in the chair next to Skye’s bed in the morning, he gestured Lincoln out of the room before he spoke. “How much did Wade tell you?” Lincoln looked Coulson in the eye, “He told me everything, including his suspicion that you knew about him.” Coulson nodded, and continued on to his office. “I’ve known since he showed up who he really was. The Toolbox said there had been no contact between the brothers, and he is really very good at what he does. The progress he has made with Melinda has been fantastic. And his Gift helps a lot.” They had reached the office, and Coulson quietly shut the door. “What I don’t get, Lincoln, is why Terry, Thomas, whatever his name is, takes his brother’s side, but they never seemed to have made contact while they were in their respective Academies, or out in the field. It’s like Terry took a special effort to avoid his brother. Did he ever tell you why?” Lincoln helped himself to some coffee, and answered, “Terry actually told me. It was before his terrigenesis, so he couldn’t actually have read Garrett’s mind at that point. He regrets the Hell out of it, but John Garrett had come to talk to him back when he had just started his PhD. Terry was still an Emo boy back then. I’ve seen the pictures, it’s hilarious. Anyway, Garrett told Terry that he was going to honor the memory of his late brother Grant by using his identity to help enroll some illegitimate kid of his in the Ops Academy. Total cock-and-bull story. But Terry believed it, and he didn’t want anything to do with some guy impersonating his brother. They were close, and it was just too painful. He had no idea that Grant Ward the SHIELD Specialist was actually his brother until you were trading him to his older brother Shitass---I mean Christian. Until that point, he was sure Grant had died escaping from Juvie back in 1999.” Coulson nodded, his questions answered. “Do you know where Terry went? And does this explain the 200 pound difference Fitz told me there was between the collective weight of all the dead HYDRA agents, and the collective weight of the rubble? Is he looking for his brother?”

“HALF brother,” Lincoln corrected Coulson, “They had different mothers, so it is only a 50 percent chance Grant is also Inhuman. There was a cocoon, and Terry and I were going to reconstruct it and make a mold. I don’t know whether it is Grant’s or someone else’s. Terry thinks it might be him, but given that it’s his brother, maybe there’s more hope than fact involved here. But DC, you know what it means if it is Grant Ward, and he has only now undergone terrigenesis. It means I might be right here. That we’re barking up the wrong tree on the serial killer. If it were about Sk—I mean Daisy, only females would have been targeted. Which is not the case here. The only thing the victims have in common is that they were all Inhuman. Either Grant had to knowingly be Inhuman all along, terrigenesis and everything, or we are looking for someone else.” Coulson nodded, “Keep me advised, okay?”


	2. Chapter 2

     About a week later, as much of the face as could be brought together on the cocoon was in place, and the plaster of Paris was drying. Lincoln was poring over Terry’s notes and his umpteenth book on serial killers. The only thing that kept Terry from pursuing a career as a profiler in SHIELD was his not wanting to work with specialists, which may have included the man he thought was impersonating his brother. But Lincoln had to admit Terry had quite the talent for profiling. Things had gotten quieter, once the rest of the team realized Terry’s true identity, and how their insensitivity had driven Terry/Tommy away. May was predictably furious. She had punched Coulson, and almost punched Lincoln, when her own husband reminded her that they did not have many options. A blade of one of the Helicarriers had cut right through the part of the Triskelion where Psychological Services resided, and HYDRA had heavily recruited shrinks of all kinds to get the material they needed for blackmail. Garner had resigned three days before, and Terry was recovering from an injury he had sustained in China. Most of the rest of Psychological Services were dead, HYDRA, or refused to have anything to do with SHIELD after the fall. Which left May either having to talk to her own husband about her sexual relationship with Grant, or talking to Grant’s brother. Not too many other people were trained, vetted, and had the clearance to even hear about internal SHIELD matters.

 

     Lincoln’s eyes were starting to glaze over, and he brought up his laptop, checking one of a number of innocuous fandom message boards the Inhumans used to keep in touch. There was enough message traffic from the target audience that the code-speak they used didn’t really stand out. Lincoln signed in, and noticed he had a private message. He clicked on the Messages tab, and saw a message from Tr4um4. Lincoln let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding since Terry’s disappearance, and opened the message:

_Hi Sparky!_

_Settling in OK at the new place. Made some new friends. My brother came over, but he got sick. Forgot his meds. Something called “Skye.” I am…not familiar with this. Maybe you can bring some to dinner? I know this great place in Addison. Please don’t forget it, this is very important, like life and death important._

Lincoln had forgotten that Terry had never known Daisy when she was going by “Skye.” Lincoln tapped on his tooth with a fingernail, then wrote back,

 

_Hey Tr4um4,_

_Let me know the where and when! I’ll be bringing some daisies!_

Terry seemed to have been online, because Lincoln had barely clicked out of the Personal Messages tab when another message appeared:

_Sparky,_

_The folks I’m staying with are NOT, I repeat NOT fond of daisies. Bring the Skye without the daisies!_

Ah, Hell. This told Lincoln _exactly_ who Terry and Grant had fallen in with. Alice Pilsner and her bunch were adamantly Anti-Index and often referred to Inhumans who worked for SHIELD as traitors to their kind.

_Tr4um4,_

_Bro, the Skye is made from the daisies. It’s an herbal medicine. The Skye *is* the daisies. Try to smooth things over with your friends and we will meet you tonight._

 

     Lincoln checked the plaster again, and it was dry. He-un-molded it, and saw that Grant’s shocked expression was unmistakable. He wrapped it in a jacket, and walked to Daisy’s room. They had not spoken much since the party. He found her looking as if she had fallen asleep while doing paperwork. “Hey, Linc. I’m sorry about what happened at the party. It was very unprofessional, and I don’t know what got into me.” Lincoln shook his head, “Everybody grieves in their own way. Especially if it’s someone you don’t think you should be grieving. I don’t go to bed with anybody who doesn’t want to go to bed with me. And it wasn’t me you wanted that night. So it’s cool.”

     The sad, guilty look was back on her face. Lincoln put the jacket-wrapped face on the desk. “I heard from Terry.” Daisy brightened at that, even if the guilt in her eyes didn’t diminish. She had run into her room and cried when she learned that Terry had left the team and why. Other than the Grant issue, she and Terry had gotten along famously, and whatever she felt about Grant Ward, she felt awful having inadvertently rubbed Grant’s death in his own brother’s face. “How is Terry doing?” Daisy inquired. Lincoln smiled a bit smugly, “He had some news for me, and for you.” Lincoln un-wrapped the plaster face and showed it to Daisy, who was confused until Lincoln showed her a piece of Grant’s cocoon he had been keeping in his pocket. Her chin dropped to the floor, and she sank into her chair. “Wow. I mean, it was a possibility, given that Terry is one of us, but like, he and Grant were only half-siblings. Guess they shared the parent who counted.” It was like the sunrise had broken across her face. “Which means now Grant doesn’t fit any of the profiles of the serial killer Wade/Ward and Garner were working on. He’s not our guy for this case. And if he’s only now undergone terrigenesis, and is not the serial killer? Well, I learned my lesson with Raina. I don’t pretend to know what he’d do with a second chance, but he gets one. Is he doing okay?” Lincoln shook his head. “No he’s not, and Terry needs your help. He’s calling for ‘Skye,’ and he and Terry fell in with Alice Pilsner and her gang.”

     Daisy rubbed the bridge of her nose and rolled her eyes. Pilsner had been a thorn in the whole team’s side. She was a respected political blogger before she ran across that certain batch of fish oil, and was as astute in her TV appearances as she was online. Her public criticism of SHIELD and Phil Coulson was relentless, and to call it pointed and sharp did razors a disservice. She was a walking PR nightmare, and had a rather nasty Gift to boot. Months of Terry’s and Andrew’s progress with May was undone in five seconds of bare-skin contact one time when May tried to grab her. Pilsner could get inside your mind with very brief skin-to-skin contact, and knew how to warp fears and bad memories to trap a victim in some version of their worst memory, where things had gotten even worse. May was convinced the girl in Bahrain had managed to control her, and she had killed all of her team, except Coulson. To Pilsner’s credit, she agreed to use her Gift to help repair the damage afterwards. When May was better, she oddly didn’t hate Pilsner as much. May once told Daisy that the details of what she knew she and Pilsner agreed to keep in confidence, but when Pilsner used her Gift, the sharing of thoughts and memories went both ways. And it took a worse person than Pilsner or May could ever be to hate one another after seeing so much of the other’s thoughts. Pilsner was not a friend, but she was certainly not HYDRA. Daisy nodded and said to Lincoln, “Ward _knows_ I go by Daisy now. It’s all I have left from my birth parents, my name. If he’s calling me Skye, Pilsner must have attacked him and trapped him somewhere in his past when I still went by Skye. But Pilsner can fix people she attacks. Why hasn’t she done so for Grant?” Lincoln nodded, agreeing with Daisy’s assessment, and added, “And if Grant were the serial killer, she and her friends would have finished him off when he was weak, then gone on Fox News proclaiming her team could get this done, where SHIELD could not. This means she saw something worth dragging you out to Plano for. We meet Terry in Addison in 45 minutes, which means we probably ought to leave now.”


	3. Chapter 3

     “Well, well. If it isn’t Phil Coulson’s little pet.” Alice Pilsner’s eyes were obsidian mirrors, reflecting unflattering things in Daisy’s direction. Pilsner had one of her gloves off, ready to grab someone at any moment. Daisy was not having any of it, “I’m not here for your edification or entertainment, Pilsner. The man you have in the garage has been asking for me, and I hear it was your doing. So get off your high horse, and let me in to see him.” Alice blocked her way. The woman was stocky, tall, and had enviable bone structure. Impulsively, Daisy grabbed for Alice’s bare hand with her own. “Look deep, Alice. As deep as you need to. I’m here to help. I realize he’s not the killer we are looking for….” She felt something sifting through her memories, soften a bit, then a small earthquake shook the house. Alice opened her eyes, the anger gone. “Sorry, had to touch your Gift to be sure you were not able to lie to me,” Alice apologized. She put the gloved hand on Daisy’s shoulder, and guided both her and Lincoln to the garage.

     It was a rather chilly fall day, even in Dallas, but the garage was a sauna. Grant sat on the floor of the garage in a corner, naked, looking like a man condemned. He brightened slightly at seeing Daisy. “Skye. I had to know you were safe before I could let them operate on me. Go. Far away from here. I’m giving Garrett what he wants, so he doesn’t need you. I know you can’t love me, so maybe it’s easier this way. I can love you in your memories, and I don’t have to mess up your life anymore. Tell everybody I’m sorry, and it’s better this way.” Suddenly, Daisy was picked up by the tiny, red-haired lady who walked in behind her, and pulled out of the garage, as Lincoln, Alice, and a tall, bald man with pale eyes and a scar on his head threw on lab coats and walked towards Grant.

     Before she could even get her bearings, the redhead dropped her on the couch in the living room. Sitting in a chair opposite the couch was Terry Wade, or rather, Thomas Terrance Ward. He was sucking on a vapor pen with a haunted look in his eyes. “Don’t go back in there Daze. As long as he thinks Lincoln, Alice, and Garrison are there to kill him for Garrett, he won’t fight.” “ _WHAT THE HELL_?” Skye shouted at Terry, whose expression barely wavered. “Please keep it down. Grant has to think HYDRA sent us away. It’s the only way the guys can get near enough to help him. Grant’s transition has been awful, and it didn’t help that Alice attacked him when he showed up on the doorstep, going on SHIELD’s identifying him as the serial killer. Grant freaked the fuck out when he saw me. He thought he was back with Garrett, and they were going to hurt me. I haven’t even been able to comfort my own brother, because he has to think he made a deal with the late John Garrett. He agreed to be vivisected in place of you, now that he’s Inhuman. He wanted to be sure 'Skye' was alive, safe, and that he had a chance to say goodbye.” Daisy’s jaw hit the ground, and tears were beginning to well in her eyes. “John Garrett is dead, isn’t he?” Terry relaxed, “Yes, he’s dead, and Lincoln, Alice, and the others are trying to get close enough to him to fix him. He got locked in some memory where Garrett was supposed to kill you or something, and we had to play with that to get him to calm down and let the others work. We had to get you here, because he had to see you to be sure you were okay. He wasn’t going to cooperate otherwise.” Terry tipped a bag of chips in Daisy’s direction, and she ate them, almost unable to taste the chips and salsa through her shock and horror. “I should really kick Alice’s butt for that,” Daisy finally said. Finally, Terry started to chuckle. “Beat you to it, Daze, verbally. Tore her a new one, but when she jumped him, she really thought he was the serial killer. It wasn’t until he was…like that when she read him and could tell he wasn’t the killer. But by then he was radiating heat and hostile as Hell. And that’s about when I showed up, after your team’s little party.” Daisy grimaced, “About that, we didn’t know, and we were really insensitive….” Terry gave Daisy a contemptuous look, “Save it, it let me know who SHIELD really was, and who you were too. As soon as Grant knows what year it is, I’m getting us far away from here. I can even drive you to the mall right now, so your friends can pick you up. You did your part, and maybe my brother can remember you as something better than you really are. You’d have to wait another day or so before you can jump Lincoln’s bones, the poor bastard.”

     Skye had to suck in a breath to keep her voice down, but she hissed back, “Terry, Thomas, or whatever the Hell your name is, you don’t know a DAMN thing about me or what happened between your brother and me. I was falling in love with a man it turned out I barely knew. If I was the great love of his life, why is he still choosing to keep John Garrett alive, as if that horse hasn’t left the barn.  And if you cared so damned much, why didn’t you try to find him before now?” Terry re-loaded the vape pen, and jabbed a thumb towards the garage, “My brother is trying to die for you. If that’s not choosing you, I don’t know what is. And—,” Terry closed his eyes and took a very deep puff, “John Garrett, you know, the real bad guy here? He told me when he was getting Grant enrolled in the Ops Academy, that the Grant Ward he was enrolling wasn’t my brother. He was some sprog from one of his babymamas or something. I wanted nothing to do with a man who couldn’t hold my brother’s dirty socks.” Daisy cocked her head to the side, curious. “I thought Grant threw you down a well?”

     Terry put the vapor pen down. “Our older brother made him do it. Grant got me out as soon as he could, and we tried to run away. We tried a number of times, even trying to take Rose with us. But they’d find us, every time. After one attempt, we made it all the way to North Carolina. When we got back, Grant was shipped off to military school, and I never saw him again. Without Grant there, Christian beat me, and he almost killed me. Seriously, I ended up in the hospital and everything. Dad paid the military school off to say Grant was AWOL when I was in the hospital, so they could say he came and attacked me. Anything to cover for the future Senator Shitass. Grant stole a car, tried to set the house on fire, and ended up in Juvie. Then he escaped, but was shot by the guards. At least, that was what we were told. Turns out Garrett broke him out and took him to the woods for five years. At least that’s what I could get out of him. Kept going on about how Garrett saved his life or some shit, but then he’d be all, ‘Okay, you know what happened, now get them to let you go. He won’t need you once he has my organs.’” Terry’s voice broke, and he could not continue. Daisy walked over to him and gave him a hug. The large man was shaking like a leaf, and was doing all he could to keep from crying. “Terry, your brother has not had the happiest past with SHIELD. And I get that you want to be left alone. If we can prove Grant’s story, maybe we can get SHIELD to back off him.”


	4. Chapter 4

     Daisy took out her laptop, got the Wi-Fi password from the redhead, who was standing guard on the garage door, and began to work. She calmed Terry down, and got some details, which she proceeded to verify, using her own resources. Terry sat by her, and helped in what way he could, but Daisy was the better forensic accountant and hacker. The military school had indeed gone on a building and renovation spree beginning in 2000. Most buildings on campus were named for their donors, but not the ones in the 2000 build. They were all given the names of famous historic military leaders, like Hannibal and Nelson. It was circumstantial, but it was evidence of a large anonymous donation. Daisy remembered head-banging with Fitz and Hunter over the files from CyberTek, finally assembling from the accounting files of CyberTek and the personal accounts of the late John Garrett, a list of holdings they had checked out for HYDRA facilities and safe houses. She remembered a week she had spent checking out a hunting lease in Wyoming that belonged to John Garrett, being sure it was just a hunting lease. The caretaker was a man named Tony, who was an odd survivalist-type, and rather young for his job. But the hunting lease did not appear to be hiding anything untoward, so Coulson had the deed to the land signed over to the caretaker. Given what Terry had just told her, she decided to do a more thorough check of young Anthony Antonucci. One odd thing she had recalled was that Antonucci’s birthday was supposed to be in June, but he had some relatively fresh birthday cake in the fridge when she had visited the cabin in April. Daisy adjusted the range of birthdates accordingly, and……”Bingo. Birthday in June, nothing. Birthday on March 26, and Anthony Antonucci has a juvenile record in New York for killing his father. Police records for the address listed show a lot of domestic violence calls there prior to the killing. Tony was taken to Juvie in ’13, but he is listed as killed in an escape attempt. Sound familiar?” And finally, Daisy lost it. Terry held her and let her cry. “I didn’t believe him. He told Coulson all this, and Coulson and I laughed about it. It sounded so ridiculous. Oh my God, it was true!”

     The door to the garage opened, and the redhead went in, as Lincoln, Pilsner, and the bald guy were removing their scrubs and tossing them in the washer. Lincoln saw the look in Terry’s and Daisy’s eyes, and shook his head. “We got Grant needled, and I started the Transitioning. He passed out. All three of us need to crash right now. Hopefully, when we wake up, the temperature will be such that Garrison or Alice can touch him with something other than oven gloves. Their Gifts require skin-to-skin contact. Fortunately, I could maneuver the needles with an oven glove. You still can’t go in there until Alice has had a chance to work on him.” Garrison and Pilsner exchanged a kiss, and retired to one bedroom, while Lincoln went in another. While they were still exiled away from Grant, Daisy called the number on the card from the hunting lease. In two rings, a New York-accented voice answered, “Cavern Ranch, this is Tony.” Daisy painted a smile on her voice. “Hi, Tony. This is Daisy. You remember me? From SHIELD?” There was a catch in Tony’s voice, “Yeah, Daisy. I remember ya. Are you….hunting?” From Tony’s voice, she could tell he was sure she wasn’t the hunting type. “Relax, Tony. My friends and I have some questions about internet connectivity in the main cabin.” Tony seemed to relax. “You like My Little Pony? I really like My Little Pony, and I watch it online. Anyway, we have an open weekend coming up in two weeks. You interested?” Daisy nodded, as if Tony could see her. “I was hoping this weekend, but that’s okay.” “Well, let me know if you change your mind.” And the conversation ended. Daisy immediately jumped on the computer, opened up an obscure fan site, joined it, wrote an innocuous intro message, then waited.

     Before long, another board member sent her a link, and she opened an app that let her use videophone over the Undernet. A very young man who looked like a grown-up Bottcelli cherub was on the other end. He still looked nervous. “Hello Daisy. I kinda figured you guys was gonna have more questions. I’m making something of myself here, and following the law. Please let me keep Cavern Ranch.” Daisy waved her hand dismissively. “Yes, I did some further checking, and no I didn’t see a reason not to let you keep the place. I know about your father, and I kind of know why you did it. I just want you to tell me the real story, how you really met John Garrett. I’m also recording this conversation, so the people I am going to show this to know I didn’t prompt you in any way.” Tony looked a bit confused, but nodded in agreement. “Before we get started, do you know a Grant Ward? I mean, besides what you read in the papers?”

     Tony nodded, “I know _about_ Grant, but I never met the guy himself. Garrett told me he was losing a friend of his, Grant Ward, to a piece of ass. Um, sorry Daisy, but that was how he put it, and Garrett said I could be a better agent of SHIELD than he was. I didn’t know shit about HYDRA or any of that other business until these hippie guys showed up talking about buying the land for a Renaissance Festival or something. They were all going on about Captain America dismantling SHIELD, and HYDRA being in SHIELD and all that business. We exchanged numbers and all that, and they took me into town for dinner. I didn’t have a way to get ahold of Garrett, but when I got to town, I heard about that raid on Cybertek, and John Garrett being dead. We was all doing more watching of the news than talking, you know. The hippies got a better deal from someone else, but I figured the land was mine now. Anyway, you want to know how I got here from New York, right?” Tony took a sip from a water bottle, and steeled himself to tell his story:

     “I loved my mother, don’t get me wrong, but she was just not gonna kick the drugs. And my dad couldn’t stop kickin’ her. One day he beat her unconscious and I just…snapped. But now he was dead, Mom could pretend he was a fucking saint or something, and she decided to make sure I got tried as an adult. I was planning how to hang myself when they told me I had a visitor. It was Garrett and a couple of guys. As soon as I walked in, they like, pulled guns out of nowhere, and held the room hostage. He asked me if I wanted to work alongside Captain America, and never have to be afraid of nobody ever again. Who couldn’t say yes to that? He brought me here, where I had nothing, and told me I had to learn to take care of myself. He said Grant had a dog, but it sent him the wrong lesson. I was going to have to learn to trust myself. And that’s the last I saw of him. Almost froze to death on my eighteenth birthday. But I made it. One of the things I boosted was someone’s emergency cell phone. So I used it to start Cavern Ranch, and at this point you showed up, so….I don’t know where to go from here.”

     Daisy nodded, tears forming again. “Thank you, Tony. You actually were a big help.” Terry elbowed Daisy over and looked into the camera. “I’m Grant Ward’s brother. Thank you so much, Tony. I’d shake your hand, but it’s a Hell of a reach from here.” Tony looked embarrassed. “I don’t know what I did, but you guys are welcome. If hunting’s not your thing, I’m building some nice vacation cabins. Gotta do something in the off season, you know. Half-price for youse, and your brother.” Terry smiled and nodded. A cell phone rang on Tony’s side. “Look guys, I gotta take this call.” Terry nodded and ended the chat session. Before Daisy had quite composed herself, her own phone rang. “Hi DC,” she choked out, “Yes, we’re all okay here…. Umm, no, I’m staying right now….I’ll call you when we’re ready to be picked up…..I haven’t even gotten to talk to him, he can’t wind me around his finger using psychic waves. His Gift has nothing to do with that……About that lying thing? I’m about to send you a file from that young guy running Garrett’s old hunting lease. Don’t…talk to me until you have watched it, okay?” Daisy hung up the phone, and sent along a copy of the recorded video call. Thirty minutes later, Coulson called back, the slight slur in his voice indicated he had had a drink first. “I called him up myself, Daisy. Couldn’t crack him. He told you the truth. Which means Ward was telling the truth. Just…call me when you are ready to come back.”

     After another day or so, Grant’s condition stabilized, and his skin was cool enough for Alice Pilsner to work with him. Terry and Daisy practically knocked each other over to see Grant, once he was deemed fit for company. They had moved him from the garage to one of the bedrooms, and seeing both his brother and Daisy helped him heal even faster. In the next two days, Grant had opportunities to talk with both alone, and had conversations he wished he could have had years ago. But duty called, and ultimately, Daisy and Lincoln headed back to base.


End file.
